


Earrings

by Crunchysunrises



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime), Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Manga), Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Community: kink_bingo, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Female Homosexuality, Female Relationships, Female-Centric, First Love, Friendship/Love, Gen, Jewelry, Love, Love at First Sight, Multi, Needles, POV Female Character, Piercings, Requited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crunchysunrises/pseuds/Crunchysunrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight vignettes about the senshi and what their earrings mean to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earrings

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Notes:** None  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights or claims to the Naruto franchises, trademarks, copyrights, or characters. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** Written for the "Kissing Away Pain" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card, the "blood loss" square on my H/C Bingo card, and the "piercings/needleplay" square on my 2011 Kink Bingo card.

Ami's mother pierces her ears when Ami is still quite small, too young to remember it. Doctor Mizuno does it in her office with sterilized equipment and steady hands. The holes are perfectly straight. Ami grows up with tiny little stud earrings, usually golden bears or fish or sea turtles, in her ears. When she is seven, Ami's father sends Ami her first set of round white pearl studs. She puts them in her earlobes and never takes them out again.

After her first death, alone in a lava flow in the Antarctic, and resurrection under the white light of her princess' Silver Crystal, Ami pierces her ears again. Her mother does the work, this time in a hospital examining room, with steady hands and sterilized equipment. The second set of holes are perfectly level with each other. Ami wears the old studs from her childhood, the golden bears and sea turtles and fish, until she finds the perfect set of pearl studs. They are so delicate a shade of gray as to appear to be faintly tinted navy blue. Ami puts them in and never takes them out again.

 

When they meet, Haruka's earlobes are unpierced and Michiru is wearing a pair of tiny gold hoops. Haruka, who is sweaty and triumphant, looks up from the track and sees a teal-haired girl in a white sundress sitting in the stands, smiling down at her. Knowing then and there that the teal-haired girl will be the love of her life, Haruka immediately goes to introduce herself.

Six months later, when they promise each other _forever,_ no matter how short their forever may be as Sailor Soldiers, they go shopping for earrings. Michiru is too traditional to wear a Western ring and Haruka too practical.

"You were wearing these when we met," Haruka says happily, her fingertip hovering over a pair of small gold hoops. "I want these."

Michiru smiles and blushes. Haruka's grin widens.

For herself, Michiru chooses a pair of white pearls that gleam navy blue in the right light. They purchase their earrings, a new sewing kit, and a bag of ice then go home.

Michiru brews the tea while Haruka heats the tips of needles over a candle's flickering flame. They sterilized each other's earlobes and then pierce them, silent as they press slim lengths of hot metal through each other's flesh. There, in the privacy of their small, brightly lit kitchen with its cozy window nook and tiled breakfast table, Haruka and Michiru put each other's earrings in with all the ceremony and solemnity of a marriage ceremony. They celebrate their union with tea and riceballs.

 

Makoto pierces her own ears as soon as she gets home from her parents' funeral. She goes from the front door directly to her mother's jewelry box and picks through the necklaces and earrings, bracelets and rings, until she finds the rose earrings. They are made from crystals or pink diamonds, if such things exist, and they glow and flame under the overhead light. Makoto had always loved her mother's rose earrings.

She goes to the bathroom, smears rubbing alcohol over her earlobes, and pushes her mother's earrings through her earlobes. Blood droplets trickle down her neck and drip onto her shoulders and are lost in the stiff black fabric of her mourning. It takes her two hours to get the first earring in and only an hour and a half to get her second one in. They are nearly level with each other.

It hurts.

Makoto barely notices.

 

Minako is a minor idol for about three months before Sailor V takes a post with INTERPOL. Her parents, after hearing that it has something to do with her idol career, are uninterested in Minako's trip. So the details of Minako's journey, such as getting her passport, enrolling in school, finding an apartment, and creating a travel itinerary, are left up to her and Artemis.

They travel halfway around the world. Even in first class, Minako is miserable and cramped. Artemis insists that the return journey will be made in a ship. Minako does not have the heart to argue with him.

While in England, Minako pierces her ears on a whim... three times. Then she pierces the cartilage halfway up her right ear, gets an ear cuff, and pierces her tongue.

"You're lucky that you don't jangle when you walk," Artemis says scornfully.

"Lighten up Artemis!" Minako says cheerfully. She is looking at herself in a mirror and contemplating whether she should get an eyebrow or nose ring next. "They'll all heal up after I take the rings out. I'm just... living my life before I die."

"You aren't going to die, Minako!"

"I'm a lone Sailor Senshi fighting an entire kingdom," Minako says, lowering her mirror enough to give Artemis a flat look over its silver rim. "The odds aren't in my favor, Artemis."

"Minako... You aren't going to die," Artemis says helpless. "You _can't."_

Minako knows that he means to be comforting and encouraging but she has already seen people that she loves die. Some of them, she killed herself. Minako is not afraid to die but she _is_ afraid of not living what time she has left to the fullest.

A year later, Minako learns just how right Artemis was. So long as her Princess lives, Minako _literally_ cannot die. Minako still worries that she is not packing enough life into every day.

 

Setsuna gets her ears pierced when she is still young enough to be worried that it will hurt and old enough to be excited about all of the pretty earrings that she will get to wear. Always something of a fashion maven, Setsuna spends all of her disposable income on earrings and jewelry and clothes.

When she awakens as Sailor Pluto, Setsuna is delighted by her accessories. Her garnet earrings are large and something that she would wear for herself. Her choker, an accessory that Setsuna had never seen the full potential of before her Sailor Pluto costume materialized, has a matching garnet gem hanging from it. And her _keys..._

Setsuna never admits as much to the younger senshi but she would be Sailor Pluto solely for her uniform's accessories. But the ability to twist, rewind, fast forward, and stop time definitely comes in handy when Setsuna is working to get her fall lineup designed and ready for fashion week.

 

By the time that she returns from England, Minako has removed all of her piercings save for two sets of golden stud earrings, one shaped like stars and the other shaped like hearts. For her princess' fifteenth birthday, Minako takes Usagi to get her ears pierced. Since Rei flatly refuses to 'mutilate her body solely to please the gaze of any man', Usagi is the last of the Guardian Senshi to get her ears pierced.

Usagi enjoys picking out her silver stud earrings, two tiny crescent moons, and holds Minako's hands when it comes time to sit down and hold still for her ear piercing. She squeals when the gun shoots the first stud through her earlobe and yelps at the second. Afterwards, Minako buys Usagi ice cream for being so brave.

 

Rei is very brave when the doctor pierces her earlobes, her Mommy says so. She wears little golden flames or tiny red birds, fashioned for her by her favorite cousin, and takes pleasure in being her Father's pretty girl.

Every year, her father takes her to work on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Rei only sees her father at lunchtime. She spends the rest of the day with her father's assistants.

When Rei is eight, Rei slips her caretaker's leash and goes in search of her father. His secretary's desk is empty and his other assistants are distant, murmuring voices. Alone and unnoticed, Rei slips down the hallway to her father's office on silent feet.

The door is cracked and beyond it, Rei can hear her father calling some _other_ little girl his pretty girl. Jealous, Rei nudges the door a tiny bit and peeks in. Her father has back his secretary up against the filing cabinets. He calls her endearments between kisses.

Rei runs away, down the hall and out of the building. She runs and cries for three city blocks before she finally runs out of breath. She cries a bit longer and then, when someone calls the police, asks the nice policeman to take her home to her grandfather's shrine.

Her mother is sleeping so Rei tells her grandfather what she saw. His lips white and his eyes furious, her grandfather makes Rei promise not to tell her poor mother.

Her mother dies three months later.

At the funeral, Rei is small and her clothes are heavy. It rains and she is cold except for where her father and grandfather are holding her hands. After the funeral, Father says, "Come along, my pretty girl."

Rei wrenches her hand away from his.

She goes home with her grandfather, which suits her father just fine. At home, Rei takes her phoenix earrings out. She never replaces them, letting her holes grow over. Soon, there is not even a mark to denote where she had once been pierced. Rei keeps her earrings because they are beautiful and their maker really _is_ her favorite cousin.

Years later, when Minako invites Rei to get her ears pierced with Usagi, Rei says coldly, "I refuses to mutilate my body solely to please the gaze of any man."

"It's not for a man," Minako says persuasively. "It's just to look pretty!"

"According to the standards set by this male-dominated society," Rei says scornfully. "No, thanks."

Rei will _never_ be _any_ man's 'pretty girl' ever again.

 

Chibiusa is a thousand years old when she meets Tomoe Hotaru for the first time and twelve hundred when Helios first hides in her dreams. While she loves them both deeply, Chibiusa knows that only one of her loves will grow to become something as deep and rich and long-lasting as anything that she has seen between her own Mama and Papa.

Helios will only be able to see Chibiusa so long as her dreams tread the border between those of a young woman and a full-grown adult. After that, he will be lost to her. His kind is not meant to be bound by time, age, or maturity. Chibiusa is old enough to know her duty to her mother's throne and young enough to believe that she can have her heir, her love, and her true love.

As a promise that theirs is a love deferred, not forgotten , Chibiusa and Hotaru purchase earrings for each other. Hotaru buys Chibiusa pale pink diamonds, shaped like hearts, and Chibiusa buys Hotaru translucent white diamonds, shaped like starbursts.

Using hot needles, they pierce each other's ears in a kitchen with a cozy window nook and an elegant, tiled table, giggling and kissing each other's tears away. By the time Hotaru's Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama come home, they are eating popcorn and watching a movie.

It is another thousand years as measured by Chibiusa's timeline before Hotaru and Chibiusa give each other a second set of piercings and earrings.


End file.
